The City That Never Sleeps

On view at 511 Gallery

February 21 - May 1, 2025

511 Gallery is pleased to present The City That Never Sleeps ,

with an opening reception on Friday, February 21st from 6 to 8 p.m.

Lucy Levene, Structure (from the series Nightshift) 2004, c-print, 36 x 43 inches        

511 Gallery is pleased to present The City That Never Sleeps, a group exhibition of photographs, paintings, and prints from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries that explore the identities, characters, and spirits of ten large urban centers of America and Europe with no “little-town blues” whatsoever.  

As New Yorkers, we are used to the ups and downs of our city's economy, governments, and reputation. We recognize too that other large and diversely populated cities in America as well as on other continents experience similar volatility. Right now, however, it is in our country, under a new President, that our largest, most populated, and most diverse cities, are being singled out for not only verbal abuse but now also for proactive financial and legislative attack. 

Fortunately, New York and, indeed, most large cities and their populations are alert and awake. In recognition of that 24/7 vigilance, we are presenting the exhibition, The City That Never Sleeps, a description that perhaps began in a song about New York, New York, but which we extend visually to include nine other cities – Los Angeles, London, New Orleans, Berlin, Chicago, Edinburgh, Venice, Paris, and Rome – that work and play long before and after the day is done.

Marian Moratinos, Untitled (from the series Artificial Order) 2007, silkscreen on paper, 6 x 20 inches

Works in the exhibition include two mid-twentieth century paintings by the French American artist, Guy Pène du Bois, Bar New Orleans (1946) of the city in which his ancestors had settled in the 1830's, and in which he had just visited and spend several months living and painting in a studio on Dauphine Street; and Korean Girl (1955) a portrait of the young Broadway and ballet costume designer, Willia Kim, in his Paris studio; three photographs by contemporary British photographer, Lucy Levene, Structure (from the series Nightshift, 2004) of a couple embracing just off the dance floor of a London club; and a portrait and Cowboy from the L.A. Stories series (2010), made during the artist's three-month residency in the Hollywood film industry. Venice is represented by an 1868 albumen print by Carlo Ponti of two gondoliers at work in early daylight; and Rome by photographer Patrizia Bonanzinga's Roma Archeologia (2007) of the remains of ancient slabs of columns and stelae under focused light of the Forum at nighttime. Works by contemporary print artists Caitlin Masley and Marian Moratinos, sculptor and drawing artist Jennifer Odem, drawing artist Lesley Punton, and photographers Robert Miller, Bruce Blakeney, Catriona Grant, and Anna Ferrer, round out the pictures of the survival instincts and qualities of the city that never sleeps and those who continue to "want to be a part of it..."

The City That Never Sleeps was curated by Leah Langhoff and Julius Weyandt.

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For further information, please contact 511 Gallery at (212) 255-2885 or 511gallery@gmail.com